ELOKA Team

Peter Pulsifer, principal investigator

Peter Pulsifer is a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and principal investigator (PI) for ELOKA. Pulsifer specializes in data management and sharing protocols; understanding terminology related to traditional and community-based knowledge; and the development of web-based mapping and visualization applications.

Colleen Strawhacker, co-PI and co-director

Colleen Strawhacker is a research scientist at NSIDC and joined the ELOKA team in 2013. She is trained as an anthropological archaeologist, and her research interests focus on climate-driven challenges to food security in the prehispanic US Southwest and Arctic with particular interest in information and data sovereignty issues for Indigenous communities. She has partnered closely with Indigenous communities in her research. As of June 2018, Colleen is on detail to the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a program director for Arctic System Sciences.

Shari Fox, co-PI and ELOKA co-founder

Shari Fox is a research scientist at NSIDC, an ELOKA co-founder, and its co-PI. She specializes in the Arctic environment and its changes, Inuit knowledge, sea ice, knowledge co-production, and environmental geography.

Betsy Sheffield, product owner and project manager

Betsy Sheffield has worked in various capacities with the ELOKA project since its beginnings in 2007, first as a user services representative and most recently as product owner and project manager. With a background in environmental studies and an interest in health and food security, Sheffield brings passion for people and problem solving to her role.

Heidi McCann, knowledge exchange coordinator

Heidi McCann joined ELOKA in 2010 as the knowledge exchange coordinator. Her background in museum consultation, American Indian culture preservation, and computer information management aids her work with Arctic communities, researchers, indigenous organizations, and data managers. Her area of interests include the cultural and political alterations of Indigenous People of the Arctic.

Chris McNeave, data coordinator

As a research associate at NSIDC, Chris McNeave's interests and background are in physical and human geography. McNeave has been an ELOKA team member since 2007, when he began as project manager—promoting the program and coordinating the development of its initial partnerships. As the ELOKA data coordinator, he continues working closely with Arctic scientists and community members from various Arctic regions on a range of community and data projects. In addition to his work with ELOKA, McNeave has worked on other NSIDC projects ranging from supporting an archive of United States Air Force (USAF) satellite data to collecting and managing National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Arctic field data.

Julia Collins, software developer

Julia Collins produces the majority of software development for the ELOKA project, contributing extensively to the development of SIZONet, Clyde River Weather, and various other ELOKA products.

Noor Johnson, research scientist

Noor Johnson is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on environmental knowledge production and governance in the Arctic. She holds a joint research scientist appointment with the ELOKA project at NSIDC at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. At ELOKA, Johnson’s work focuses on data infrastructures and networks for community-based observing and monitoring. From 2015 to 2016, she was an inaugural Fulbright Arctic Initiative Scholar working on offshore and renewable energy.

Matthew Druckenmiller, research scientist

Matthew Druckenmiller is a research scientist at NSIDC focusing on the implications of Arctic sea ice and environmental change on Alaskan coastal communities and marine mammals. His areas of interest include coastal sea ice dynamics, collaborating with Indigenous experts, and informing coastal environmental observing strategies.